Vets battle to save Defence golf club
A TOWNSVILLE veteran is fighting to save his golf club after Defence announced a plan to shutter the club to make way for development.
Vietnam veteran Richard Strapps said the decision would have a significant impact on the mental health of a number of veterans, who have teed off at the club located inside Lavarack Barracks for almost 50 years.
He’s launched a David versus Goliath fight against the Australian Defence Force in an eleventh-hour effort to save the club.
The Department of Defence confirmed it did not plan to renew Lavarack Golf Club’s Commonwealth of Australia Licence when it expired on November 13 and a spokesman said members would be given until December 17 to vacate the premises.
Club vice-president Andrew Smith said it was “disappointing” the club learned of its eviction date from media articles, not the ADF.
He said the department verbally advised the group in June that its lease would not be extended but said the group was told to expect a written notice within the month. “Well, we are still waiting on that,” he said.
The club caters to more than 300 members including in excess of 100 current and former defence personnel.
For a core group of veterans, like Mr Strapps, when the department pushes them out the door they will turn their backs on the sport altogether.
The former soldier was wounded in action in 1969 when he was hit by mortar fragments.
When discharged from the army in 1980, Mr Strapps said he was diagnosed with mental
My wellbeing and mental health depend on and benefit greatly from this activity
RICHARD STRAPPS
health conditions including PTSD, anger-management issues and depression.
Mr Strapps began golfing at the club about 20 years ago with a group of others at the recommendation of the Vietnam Vets Counselling Service.
He now plays the course four times a week and says the wider community will be worse off when the club finally closes.
“Closing the golf club will have no effect on how the barracks defends our country, however it will have a large effect on our community and the general wellbeing of its members,” Mr Strapps said.
“My wellbeing and mental health depend on and benefit greatly from this activity.”
The department told the Bulletin the course would be repurposed as sporting fields to accommodate a Department of Transport and Main Roads project to improve traffic flow on University Rd and the entrance to the base.
But a TMR spokesman said while congestion had increased around the entrance to Lavarack Barracks, planning had “not yet started” for upgrades of the area.
Further, the TMR spokesman said the department had not identified a need to re
sume any Defence land to accommodate the future project. “We are undertaking preliminary traffic modelling for University Rd outside Lavarack Barracks … to define the area that will need to be considered as part of a future Bruce Highway planning project,” the spokesman said.
The Lavarack Golf Club was one of three Defence golf courses across the country open to the public. Mr Smith said Townsville’s club differed from those in Darwin and Canberra as it was inside the base, unlike the other two courses.
Mr Smith said the grounds,
which contain a nine-hole course with 18 tees, had been downsized a number of times over the years at the request of the ADF.
First established in 1972, the club, which is funded and maintained by the members of the club, will close on the eve of its 50th year in operation.
As the club stares down its impending eviction, Mr Smith said emergency planning was under way to amalgamate members with another club. He rejected claims the department was working with members to help achieve this.